"Hilda? Can you tell me how you met her?"
Linda Linda asked curiously. "I've always been a bit curious about the Rat Alliance Battle Line, I used to think they were a cult at first."
Xiao Ting seemed to recall something, her expression very complex, but she quickly shook her head, "She's dead now, let's not talk about it."
After thinking for a moment, Linda Linda spoke again, "Perhaps you could ask Sun Jack, he used to be part of the Rat Alliance Battle Line, maybe he knew Hilda too."
"Enough! Don't speak of it! Why are you so nosy!" Xiao Ting clenched her fists tightly and slammed them down, standing up abruptly, immediately drawing the attention of everyone around her.
Seeing the surprise in Linda Linda's eyes and the astonishment of those around, Xiao Ting suddenly felt very tired, "I really hate interacting with you three-dimensional world people!"
With that, she stood up and walked away without looking back.
Back in the office, she opened her online cloud drive and began downloading various trained assistant AIs, preparing for the upcoming work.
Interacting with people from the three-dimensional world was just too exhausting; she preferred dealing with AIs instead. At least the AIs were programmed to always put her first and could help alleviate some of her work stress.
Just then, the window beside her suddenly opened, and a small unmanned drone placed an expensive fruit platter on Xiao Ting's desk, with a note on top, "I'm sorry—Linda Linda."
Warmth filled Xiao Ting's heart for a moment, but she quickly shook her head, "Focus! I must try to interact less with such people in the future! You've been burnt once! What if she treats everyone this way? You're not special at all!"
Right then, a knock on the door sounded, and a notification popped up from the HR department on Xiao Ting's screen; her requested assistant had arrived. "Come in!"
As a line of people walked in and looked at her, Xiao Ting felt extremely uncomfortable. She promptly pulled out an assistant AI to conduct the interviews on her behalf, settling herself to reap the benefits.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Linda Linda had already conveyed the message to Tapai, and then hurriedly helped Tapai restrain an almost explosive Sun Jack.
"Her partner was Hilda? Her partner was Hilda?! Shit!"
"Don't be like this. If you go now, wouldn't that expose me directly?"
Linda Linda quickly grabbed Sun Jack's right hand and placed it on her left chest, kissing him directly, attempting to use her body to calm him down.
Sun Jack pushed her away, his face dark and terrifying; he hadn't expected that Linda Linda's mere contact would unearth such a huge piece of news.
Xiao Ting knew Hilda? And they had an online romance? Was Hilda playing the field?
But Sun Jack immediately shook his head, it couldn't be true; he knew Hilda, she wasn't that kind of person, this he was certain of—there must be some misunderstanding.
"Find out more details, I need to know everything about her interaction with Hilda!" Sun Jack immediately issued a new command to Linda Linda.
"Okay, I'll try my best, but she's angry now, it will take some time to cool off."
"Fuck, if it weren't for the work she does, I would have punished her a long time ago!" Sun Jack suppressed the rage in his heart, feeling a new layer of dislike for Xiao Ting upon hearing this news.
Linda Linda spoke up in an attempt to reason, "Don't be like this. She seems to be just an otaku, there's no need to torment her."
"Torment?" Sun Jack looked at Linda Linda, "This bastard is a beast! Do you know what she's done behind the scenes? And you feel sorry for her?"
Having said that, Sun Jack directly shared all of Xiao Ting's good deeds with Linda Linda.
"But she just secretly cloned others' memories and personalities for her own slaves, fundamentally she hasn't harmed anyone else."
"Damn, what kind of values do you have?" Sun Jack looked at Linda Linda with dissatisfaction.
However, Linda Linda shook her head. "Right and wrong is relative; compared with others in Metropolis, what does her behavior count for? After interacting with her, I found that she's not all that bad."
Sun Jack approached Linda Linda, slightly leaning down to look at her. "Save your kindness! Use it in the right place! Don't have any sympathy with that kind of person! I didn't pay you to come here and make friends!"
Linda Linda quickly lowered her gaze, her hands crossed in front of her as she nodded subtly, "Understood."
As soon as Linda Linda left, Sun Jack rubbed his swollen temples, "Her temperament really isn't suitable for intelligence work."
"That's not necessarily true; maybe it's because of this very trait that she's more suited to this work."
Sun Jack lowered his hands, "Let's give it a try first; if it really doesn't work out, then transfer her back to the medical department to be a nurse."
Seeing Sun Jack relight a cigarette, Tapai lit it for him.
"No wonder you and Xiao Ting haven't seen eye to eye all this time, the root of it is here, huh? Were you love rivals?"
"Impossible, Hilda could never betray me, there must be some misunderstanding!" Sun Jack said emphatically.
"During the latter stages of the Rat Alliance Battle Line, we were constantly troubled, Hilda had no reason to engage in an online romance at that time."
"You have to know, even our matters, when it was a matter of life and death, were put on hold."
Tapai wanted to speak, but was cut off by a message sent to him through the Digital Personality channel established by Sun Jack.
"Stop talking; emotional matters are of lower priority. We need to think about how to deal with Guan Sanke's next retaliation. He definitely won't let the last failure slide."
"Moreover, I feel that he must be suspecting me by now."
While Sun Jack and Tapai were discussing, Xiao Ting also started her own work.
As a researcher of Clone Personality Overlap Technology, she didn't need much of a work environment; she directly requested some computational power from company services, and used the AIs of the interns she'd just cloned to begin her experiments.
This kind of thing wasn't difficult for her, especially since she excelled in that area; even if she encountered temporary difficulties, she believed she would overcome them quickly.
Especially since she had the entire company's resources at her disposal, she had never fought such a well-resourced battle before.
However, the system AI was somewhat of a nuisance; whenever she thought about stepping out of line, the system AI would immediately issue a warning.
Once she got out, she'd have to find a way to copy this system AI.
After a tiring day, Xiao Ting was just about to leave work when a message came through. "You want to go against Sun Jack? Let's talk."
As Xiao Ting hesitated, another message arrived. "To show my sincerity, let me tell you something, Hilda is Sun Jack's girlfriend."